


Leaves and Shells

by Chimaera-Writes (ChimaeraKitten)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, I PROMISE THIS ISNT QUITE THE PAINFEST IT SOUNDS LIKE, Wakes & Funerals, off screen too, there's an OC but only by necessity, title from the song Iroh sings, yes editing we do not die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 08:41:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17261096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChimaeraKitten/pseuds/Chimaera-Writes
Summary: Zuko thought he knew how to deal with grief. But loss is different every time, and losing the one person who anchored him through all the other turmoil is its own special kind of pain. Luckily Zuko is not quite as alone as he once was.





	Leaves and Shells

**Author's Note:**

> wiki says Iroh “died” around 131 AG, (and Zuko’s grandson who is named after him is born in 134 AG) so that makes Zuko around 47 or 48 here—He’s been on the throne a while and is pretty secure there, but that doesn’t mean everything is great, or that some of the older people at court don’t still talk-also, if characterization feels off, it’s because my first draft had this set closer to 110 or 115 AG-ish, putting Zuko in his late 20s or early 30s, but then I remembered people generally live longer in the ATLA-verse and I read the wiki and had to shift it.
> 
> I left ambiguous Izumi’s mother, since we’re still unclear on whether Mai and Zuko were a thing later. Li Qiang is an OC of necessity, anything you need to know about him is stated. I got his name from a list of common chinese names, please tell me if I messed up with spelling/stereotyping/weird meaning or anything. IDK What the canon is on the tea shop later? I’m not 100% up to date with the comics but i trust none of them have revealed who has the Jasmine dragon after 131 AG

They hold two funerals.

The first is a funeral of state, a traditional pyre followed by a somber gathering. It is a broadly attended affair held at the Fire Nation palace. That one is for Prince Iroh, General Iroh, The dragon of the west. Everybody who is anybody is in attendance. Aang and Sokka are both here, performing their respective political roles, but Zuko has barely seen either of them. He misses Izumi every day, but she’s trying to start her own family and he can’t call her back just to keep her father company.

More courtiers approach, and Zuko pastes on a polite smile and acceptes impersonal condolences with grace while listening for whispers with his good ear.

…

“This is it then, this nation really is doomed. The last of the _real_ royal family is gone.”

“Firelord Zuko is still related—“

“Please, have you seen his sister? The blood’s gone bad. It’s only a matter of time.”

…

“I don’t see why we’re having this whole affair for a traitor. We could’ve won the war if we’d kept Ba Sing Se.”

…

“It’s shameful, is what it is. The former firelord rots in prison and we put on this fanfare for a crazy old man.”

…

“You know what I think? Tea poisoning. He always did drink too much”

…

“Regretful—“

…

“—wasn’t exactly young—“

…

“—Condolences—“

…

Sparks fly from Zuko’s mouth when he thanks the next courtier. Shame twists in his gut at acting like a temperamental teenager, but it at least gets people to back off a few steps. He thinks he hears the man who mentioned “bad blood” squeak a little. He might be remembering that Zuko’s hearing is only damaged on the one side.

He schools his face back into the polite blankness and curses that his resolution to rule differently than firelords before him includes only using the traditional dias for ceremonies. He’d give almost anything to hide behind a curtain of flames right now.

He sees Aang out of the corner of his eye and it gives him the strength to speak to the group of people gathered around him.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have yet to greet the Avatar.”

He keeps his composure long enough to approach Aang, but it almost cracks at the look of true sorrow in his friend’s eyes. Of all the mourners here, Aang, at least, is genuine.

“Are you doing okay?” he asks.

Zuko takes a deep breath, and because Aang won’t hold it against him, says, “I just needed a break.”

“It’ll be over soon.”

Zuko nods his gratitude and tried not to let his fear of the idea show.

 

* * *

 

For as long as Zuko can remember, being in the midst of powerful emotion has felt like having a storm bottled up where his heart should be. When the bottle breaks—and it always does—it feels like being tossed about in a hurricane with nothing but the raft he and Uncle had used after the North Pole to cling too. But at least with the storm Zuko knows how to respond, how to direct it outward until the whipping wins and tossing waves abate. In his childhood, that was tears and sobs that wracked his entire body and his mother’s comforting hands in his hair. In his youth, it came in the form of violent outbursts, of uncontrolled blasts of fire and angry words yelled at anyone close. The storm has calmed some, in his adulthood. He no longer draws his firebending from it, but it still remains. Not ever present but ever available. In recent years, it has more often than not become passion and drive. Anger over corruption among the tax collectors becoming two sleepless nights in which he drafted an entire ream of new regulations. Fear of a poor harvest becoming a whirlwind tour of his country, assessing crop yields himself. He knows what to do with the storm.

But this time, the storm has gone still. Instead, there is a great black yawning pit inside him that sucks away all warmth and fills his waking moments with fog and static. He is empty, and like a fire so long gone out that only dry ash remains, he is lifeless as well.

He wonders if the man who mentioned bad blood was right after all, and this is him losing his mind.

He knows he should talk to someone about it, speak with Aang while he’s still here, ask Sokka or Katara how they coped with losing their mother, write a letter to his own mother, or send for Izumi. By whenever he thinks about trying the emptiness threatens to consume him and he wonders if it would even help at all.

And besides, the only person he ever was able to talk to about things like this is gone.

When Aang climbs through his window the night after the funeral Zuko can’t even find it in himself to tell him off. A man with three children and the entire world as his responsibility should know how to use a door.

Aang gets right to the point. “I’ve been thinking—well, Toph and Katara and Sokka and I have been thinking he deserves something better than this, you know? A real gathering to mourn him, not just this stuffy affair, don’t you think?”

Zuko is struck by how like the 12 year-old he met Aang still is. At 43, with wrinkles around his eyes and more than a few grey hairs in his beard, he still seeks approval in the way he phrases things.

Though, having seen Aang play the political game, that habit might only apply to friends now.

Zuko finds himself nodding.

Aang grins, “Okay, so we were thinking we could host it at his tea shop next month. Let it really be about him and the things he cared about, you know? Do you have time?”

Zuko almost says no, his duties as Firelord don’t allow for random trips to the Earth Kingdom Capital. He can just stay here and go through the motions and hope the void in his chest shrinks. He can live empty for however long it takes for it to go away.

He can almost hear what Uncle would have to say, if he heard that.

“I can make time,” he hears himself say, “for important things.”

Aang smiles sadly and pulls him into a hug. “Okay. I’ll work everything out and send you a hawk, alright?”

“Yes, okay.” He doesn’t even try to hide how he melts a little in the hug.

Aang backs up, gives a little mock bow, and is gone.

Zuko tried to pretend he didn’t take all the light in the room with him.

 

* * *

 

It has been almost three years since Zuko was last at The Jasmine Dragon. The life of the Firelord has less breathing room than the life of a tea shop owner, so uncle almost always visited him. Now, Zuko wishes he’d found the time. There’s a new outdoor seating area in front of the shop and the seating on the inside has been rearranged to accommodate more customers. The walls have been repainted and there’s an obvious spot where the floor had been damaged and replaced with a slightly different shade of stone.

Everyone else is already there. Zuko tries not to envy them their mobility. The royal procession feels like more of a weight than any armor ever did.

At least get gets to leave them outside.

His friends greet him with hugs and soft words and in Sokka and Toph’s cases, jokes to lighten the mood. Their kids have been left with other caretakers for the day, and Zuko is immeasurably grateful for the peace.

He meets Li Qiang, the man Uncle left the shop to. A Ba Sing Se lower ring native, the man had become one of Uncle’s tea brewers only a few years before, and had since honed his craft to the point that Uncle’s letters referred to him as “maybe the only person who can understand tea as I do.” He is also, Zuko notes, one of the only brewers with a growing family, and the only one for whom ownership of a shop as prestigious as the Jasmine Dragon means not just a successful business, but a ticket out of poverty. Uncle was always thoughtful that way.

The man made tea to serve them all. It’s good, but not quite the same.

The time passes in a blur. One moment Zuko is speaking with Aang about Republic City, and then the next it’s Toph in front of him, then Katara, and then a string of Uncle’s white lotus friends and employees he cannot name. He drinks half a dozen cups of tea, feeling slightly dissatisfied each time.

Before he knows it, they’re lighting lamps as the sun sets.

With the shift in light comes a shift in mood, and most of the employees and white lotus members filter out. A few minutes later everyone remaining is seated around the shop’s largest table, blowing on fresh cups of tea. Zuko sits next to Toph, Aang and Katara on the side of the square table adjacent to him, and Sokka and Suki on Toph’s other side.

Li Qiang is the last to join them, sitting opposite Zuko. He leans his liuqin against the table as he sits.

“I think,” Aang pipes up, “That maybe now would be a good time to share our favorite stories about Iroh.”

Katara smiles and takes her husband’s hand. “I’ll start,” she says, “It was oh, a dozen years ago, after that conference on Republic City farming territory…” She launches into a tale about Cabbage Corp’s notoriously faulty delivery trucks, some escaped sparrowkeets, and what Katara calls “teabending.”

“And then he said, ‘you’ve got the potential of a true tea master, miss Katara.’”

Everyone laughs, and even Zuko feels a smile tugging at his lips. The whole episode does sound like something Uncle would get into.

They continue like that, everyone telling stories in no particular order. Toph tells the story of how she ran into Uncle for the first time, way back during the war, and Aang talks about how Uncle let him use the shop as a place to educate the Air Acolytes. Sokka and Suki together mention a near-diplomatic incident at a party in Omashu, and then it’s Li Qiang’s turn.

“I didn’t know him as long as all of you,” He begins, “but I’ll always remember the moment I realized what sort of man I was working for. We were having a rush—there was a minor festival happening, but not enough to bring on extra servers—and everyone was a bit frayed at the edges. Then our youngest server tripped over a customer’s robes and spilled an entire tray of tea—not on anyone, luckily, but the poor girl looked about ready to cry anyway. Iroh asked me to handle the spill and helped the girl into the back room. I was concerned he was yelling at her back there—my previous employer would have—so I checked the first second I could. He was talking to her about something, and then when she started crying for real he grabbed the liuqin and started singing and playing, trying to get her to laugh. I got to hear him do that often, these past couple of years.”

Li Qiang breathes in. “He had a song he went back to a lot, especially for comforting young customers and employees.” He picks up the liuqin he’d brought out. “I think it went something like…” he furrows his brow in concentration and plucks out a few notes. “Leaves from the vine, falling so slow...“

Zuko is crying and he cannot stop. The song peters out as he finds himself bent over near double, the void in his chest exploding into a sudden and powerful typhoon. Toph’s hand on his shoulder is the only thing grounding him, and even that is tenuous. Then someone takes his hands—Katara, probably—and arms wrap around him from behind. The breath on the back of his neck is too warm to be anyone but Aang.

Zuko breathes. He centers himself. The storm rages, all lashing waves and whipping winds, but Zuko no longer drowns. After a few minutes, his sobs are spaces far enough apart to hear the words Aang whispers to him. They are low and comforting and entirely without meaning.

“It’s okay,” Aang whispers, “you don’t have to pretend for us. It’s alright.”

Zuko tugs on his hands and Katara squeezes them one last time before releasing them.

He dries his face with his sleeves and rubs the heels of his palms into his eyes. He takes a shaky breath. “Thanks, guys.”

The arms around his waist recede and when Zuko opens his eyes Aang is back in his place next to Katara.

“Sorry,” he says to Li Qiang. He is too emotionally wrung out to summon more than slight embarrassment at breaking down in front of a man he just met.

“You haven’t mentioned your favorite memory of him yet.” Aang says softly.

Zuko glances at him, and Aang gives him a small smile. He likely wants to give Zuko something to focus on.

“I—” Zuko says, and his voice rasps and cracks. He clears his throat. “I think by now you’ve all heard most of them, but—” He clears his throat again. “—well, this one isn’t my favorite—” He could never pick a single favorite. “—but, right after I.” He has to stop and rub his eyes again, breathe. “Right after I was burned, I was in a bad fever for two days. Uncle, he, he came and sat with me, the entire time. He comforted me, while the royal healers worked.”

He looked up and met Li Qiang’s eyes over the table. “I has hardly ever lucid, but I remember he sang me that song, to try to help me sleep. It was.” He has to pause again, and Toph squeezes his shoulder. “It was his son’s—Lu Ten’s—favorite lullaby.” He swallows. “My mother was gone. My father, Azula, they didn’t visit me. But Uncle stayed. I don’t think he slept at all, since he was always there when I woke up.” Sokka shifts, but Zuko isn’t quite done. “Later, at the North Pole, he told me he thought of me like his son. I couldn’t admit it at the time, but I already thought of him like a father.”

Another round of sobs builds in Zuko’s chest, but he manages to get out the last sentence. “I don’t think I told him that enough.”

He buries his face in his hands, and distanly he registers the sounds of the others moving before he’s surrounded in a warm group hug.

“He knew,” Zuko hears someone say, muffled by bodies and fabric, “Of course he knew.”

A few notes fill the air, and Zuko realizes Li Qiang must have started the song again. It hurts, but there is no sudden cracking of ice inside him this time, just an ache.

 

One day, a girl who is not Aang but is so like him in so many ways will lead him through a spirit portal and across another world, and he will sit at a table and drink tea prepared in a way that has never quite been replicated. He will hear the only person who has always loved him tell him how proud he is of all the good he has done in a lifetime, and Zuko will say, “I did it because you believed in me,” and “you were my father,” and “I love you,” and for the first time in decades he will be unburdened of things unsaid and rarely said and often wished. He will find that the embrace of one’s parent does not lose its power with age, and he will be at peace.

But that is a long ways off yet. Now, he has a warm drink, the final notes of an old song, and the comfort of the truest friends he will ever have.

And the storm is at peace now, as well.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year! (I'm sorry)


End file.
